


Legend

by DictionaryWrites, Johannes_Evans



Series: Kuroda Antiques [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Humor, Slice of Life, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johannes_Evans/pseuds/Johannes_Evans
Summary: Kaito drops off a book at MacKinnon Antiques.
Relationships: Kaito Kuroda & Hamish MacKinnon (OCs), Velma Kuroda & Hamish MacKinnon (OCs)
Series: Kuroda Antiques [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737964
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Magic Beholden





	Legend

**Author's Note:**

> This is utterly self-indulgent. So sue me.

Mr MacKinnon was working when Kaito steps into his shop. He’d been in here before, of course, normally when waiting for Velma to come back from somewhere, and although Mr MacKinnon wasn’t so awful of an old man, in the scheme of things, Kaito never really knew what to say around him.

Mr MacKinnon wasn’t really up on things, generally – he didn’t follow any sports Kaito did, or even any of the ones he didn’t; he didn’t play videogames, use social media, or watch the news; Kaito had asked him his favourite colour once, in a fit of desperation after eighteen minutes of waiting with the old man in silence, and he hadn’t understood the question.

“What do you mean, my favourite?”

“Well, you know, your favourite… colour, the colour you like the most.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well, it’s just… You know, it’s a question that you— like if you imagine buying something, a piece of furniture, what colour would it be?”

“What room is it going in?”

“Um…”

Velma had finally gotten out of the mess on the roundabout then, and come to save him. It wasn’t that Mr MacKinnon really intended to be nasty, half the time – he definitely wasn’t as nasty to Kaito as he was to Velma, because Velma and him going head to head sometimes felt like people throwing knives at each other, and although he could be a bit sarcastic, a lot of his jokes – at least, Kaito thought they were jokes, because he didn’t know what else they were meant to be – went over Kaito’s head.

“Hello, Mr MacKinnon,” Kaito said.

“Hello, dear,” Mr MacKinnon said distractedly: he was sitting at his workbench that was pressed to one corner of the room and usually behind a curtain, but the curtain was open at the moment, and Kaito moved slowly forward to look over the old man’s shoulder.

It was one of those screens that had saints in them, that folded out like a book on each side, but Mr MacKinnon had taken the back of, and with an extremely thin paint brush, was painting rows of very neat, tiny symbols in gold paint on the hollow inside, painting over the faded paint of the old ones.

“That enchantment?” Kaito asked.

“Mmm,” Mr MacKinnon said, not looking up: he was wearing special spectacles to do the work, and Kaito imagined if the old man turned to look at him, his eyes would look terrifyingly large, and bug-like. The thought made him glance around for the alastora, but he kept them upstairs during business hours, else they climbed over customers and all sorts. “This triptych belongs in a friend’s greenhouse, to dissuade pests and such forth, but I’m afraid the moist air doesn’t do the enchantment much good, and these things do degrade. I restore it for him every fifteen years or so.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just carve it?”

“Good thinking, young man,” Mr MacKinnon said approvingly. “But I’m afraid this wood isn’t well-suited for intricate carving, and I’m reticent to attempt it lest I damage the engraving on the other side. Do we have an appointment? Your sister isn’t going to be here for another hour or so.”

“I wasn’t sure when she was gonna be here,” Kaito said, “but I have the book she leant me, so I thought I’d drop it here.”

Mr MacKinnon’s hand stopped after the last carefully painted symbol, and he drew his brush away from the wood, turning to look at Kaito over the lenses of his spectacles. “You were reading a book?” he asked, hopefully. His gaze dropped, then, to the book under Kaito’s arm: a coffee table book entitled _The Art of Pin-Up_. Kaito would like to be offended at the way Mr MacKinnon’s face dropped, but he was too busy concentrating on not laughing.

“Ah,” Mr MacKinnon said dejectedly.

“I was using it for my art study,” Kaito said.

“Of course,” Mr MacKinnon said. “Well, if you leave it on my desk, I’ll pass it back to her.”

“Um, there is— there’s one more thing, Mr MacKinnon,” Kaito said.

“You can call me Hamish, dear boy, I’m not your schoolmaster,” Mr MacKinnon said, but he’d turned back to painting the back of the triptych, and Kaito hesitated, biting his lip and shifting slightly on his heels.

“Well, um, you would’ve seen on Facebook, except that you don’t have it, but, uh, I’m fundraising for— uh, you know, for my, for my top surgery?”

Not really paying much attention, Mr MacKinnon gave an absent nod of his head as he dipped his brush in the gold paint. “And what’s that?”

“Uh, it’s a surgery that, um, that trans guys get,” Kaito said, rubbing the back of his neck. “For— for their chest?”

“And you want this, do you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“How much does it cost?”

“About six thousand, but I’ve already raised nearly five hundred pounds, and I don’t expect you to if you don’t want to but I just thought I’d ask because Velma said—”

“Pass me my chequebook, would you, young man? Top drawer of my desk.”

Kaito moved quickly across the room, leaning over Mr MacKinnon’s desk for the chequebook in question – normally, that’d make him take pause, but Mr MacKinnon was still living somewhere about three hundred years ago, where chequebooks were normal, and he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Thank you, Mr MacKinnon,” Kaito said as he jogged it back over, putting it on Mr MacKinnon’s workbench. “I’m really, really grateful.”

Mr MacKinnon plucked a pen out of the cup of pens on his desk, and his hand moved very quickly over the cheque’s surface: he had a very neat hand, the letters written in flowing cursive but perfectly legible, but Kaito didn’t see the number he’d written until he tore the cheque off and handed it over.

“Um,” Kaito said. “No, no, Mr— Mr MacKinnon, you’re not meant to—”

“Kaito,” Hamish said quietly, reaching out and gently squeezing his hand. Mr MacKinnon’s hands were scarred and calloused, but the skin was soft, because he moisturised them, a fact that Velma made fun of him for constantly. “I really _would_ like to get this restoration completed some time in the next century. You’re a perfectly lovely young man, and at any other time I should be delighted to engage in whatever scintillating conversation you had planned, but I really _must_ focus.”

Kaito stared down at the chequebook, at the three neatly inscribed zeros, and then he shifted forward, leaning down to very tightly hug Mr MacKinnon around the neck.

“Oh,” Mr MacKinnon said, apparently horrified, but Kaito ignored it – he was a good deal taller than Mr MacKinnon, and quite a bit stronger, so he hugged the old man as tightly as he dared, until Mr MacKinnon’s elegant fingers tapped against Kaito’s broad shoulders. “Yes, well, very nice, Kaito, but— off you go.”

“Thank you,” Kaito said again as he pulled back, and Mr MacKinnon gave him a stout, slightly stunted nod, then picked up his brush and went back to work.

For about half a minute, Kaito stood there, staring at him, but Mr MacKinnon was concentrated back on his work again, and Kaito grinned to himself as he stepped out.

\--

“You stupid prick,” Velma said as she entered the shop, and Hamish turned to glance at her, frowning.

“Why?”

“Because my little brother thinks you’re certifiable.”

“ _Why_?”

“Because you covered his top surgery fund without even blinking, then got confused when he was pleased about. He’s worried he can’t accept the money if you’re cracked in the head.”

“It’s only _money_.”

“Yeah, I told him you’d say that,” Velma murmured. “We don’t really think like that.”

“Humans?”

“Kurodas.”

“Right,” Hamish said, feeling slightly off his footing as he looked back at Velma, who was carrying two bags of takeaway in one hand, and with the other was locking the shop door and turning the sign to _CLOSED_. “He hugged me, you know.”

“He said he did.”

“I didn’t much care for it.”

“He said that too.”

Hamish washed his brush in the cleaning solution he had ready, setting it on a stand to dry, and he stood to his feet, rolling his shoulders as he took off his magnifying lenses and put his proper glasses back on.

“Is that O’Reilly’s triptych?”

“All finished, just needs to dry. You sure you don’t mind taking it back to him?”

“I’ll be in Dublin anyway, might as well bring it with me. Thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“I know it doesn’t mean anything to you,” Velma said quietly, “but my brother’s not exactly used to old men that barely even like him mindlessly supporting his endeavours. It means a lot to him.”

“I’m not entirely sure what the endeavour is,” Hamish admitted. “he mentioned it being to do with transgender things and I thought it best not to pry.”

Velma laughed, showing her teeth, and she nodded toward the stairs. “Please. I’m starved.”

\--

An hour or so later, as Velma picked idly at the remains of her chicken curry, bouncing a few of the alastora on her knee, she said, “Kaito’s just tweeted that you’re a legend.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Hamish said crisply, not looking up from his book. After a second’s pause, and consideration, he added, “But do tell him thank you.”


End file.
